


triangulation

by unwoundfloors



Category: Spooks | MI-5
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-29
Updated: 2011-12-29
Packaged: 2017-10-28 10:34:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/306966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unwoundfloors/pseuds/unwoundfloors
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post-5x05. Leaving is not enough; you must stay gone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	triangulation

**Author's Note:**

> Three moments in time. Summary from 'Frida Kahlo to Marty McConnell' by Marty McConnell.

All around her, Ruth can hear the gentle rise and fall of happy voices in the crowded cafe. She appears to be the only one alone on the balmy Saturday evening, with her cup of tea and novel.

She reads the one paragraph three times over before she realises she hasn't taken a word in. She sets the book back down. It's no use - she feels too restless, too distracted to focus on the story in front of her.

It has been like this everywhere she goes, everywhere she's travelled since leaving London, leaving Harry behind. Unable to keep her attention on one thing too long, unable to hold interest in anything. Always wondering if anybody's watching her, following her, if anybody sees her for the dead woman she's supposed to be.

 _You're a born spook, Ruth,_ he'd said to her, pinning her against a wall in his office once, that fierce, almost proud look in his eyes, once. She can't pretend that it's never his face she looks for in the crowds, anonymous and alone.

 

 

He is shuffling though surveillance photographs, black-and-white, grainy and blurry, when he catches sight of the one face, in sharp and glorious detail, that causes his heart to miss a beat.

Of course: it isn't her. Logically, he knows it is impossible, that Ruth couldn't possibly be one of the people, one of the faces in the crowd moving along the dreary, anonymous street in London under suveillance by Section D. In his defence, however: the resemblance is striking. The same pale countenance, the brown hair falling softly across her face, the careful way she seemed to carry herself. It was the eyes, however, that set them apart, rendered her a complete stranger. The stranger's are dark, vacant, where Ruth's had been clear, misty - almost luminous.

He's getting too old for this business, he thinks wryly, to himself, dropping the series of photographs back onto his desk, leaning back in his chair. Sentimentality, seeing ghosts - it had been a long, long day, the digital clock on his desk reading 02:12, the other lights on the Grid dim, switched to the late-night power-saving mode. Even the lamp on her old desk, whose glow he'd grown so accompanied to seeing, even after everybody else had gone for the evening was off. A small comfort on those long nights - one which had since flickered out, like so many things in their world.

Inwardly, he marvelled at the way she'd managed to remain a part of his world, everywhere and nowhere at the same time. A cruel sort of irony - she could be anywhere in the wide, cold world they inhabited, just not part of his. He imagines her, for the millionth time, lovely and lonely, travelling through cities and countries in Europe, the same way he'd once dared to imagine they might, together. Her restlessness, not borne from a desire to take in the world's infinite beauties, but necessity.

The enormity of her sacrifice for him - for MI5, for England, weighed heavily on his back. Hours like these, he knew that he still had much to do, shouldering the burden with the knowledge that one day, one distant day, he might find a way to repay the enormous debt he owes her.

 

 

The moment she takes Harry's face into her hands is the exact moment Ruth feels her heart break.

"Let me go, Harry," she says, feeling acutely aware of the significance of her words.

It was her time, like so many before her. Tom, Danny, Zoe, Sam, Fiona - and in the end, Harry too. So many things had been left unsaid. Never enough time. The cold morning air feels painful in her lungs, making her feel strangely alive.

All that was left were these few seconds on a boat, the thin light reflecting off the steely depths of the Thames, the warmth of Harry's skin beneath her fingers. One final thrill.

She kisses him. All these things I could never say, she thinks, his fingers slanting through her hair searching for a way to hold onto her. This final moment between living and purgatory.

This has to happen, this is the way things have to be.

Ruth hopes this would be enough.


End file.
